applies therefore rather to the exception than the rule.  But the oftener children have the opportunity of quitting their proper condition, and contracting the vices of men, the oftener will these exceptions arise.  Those who are brought up in the world must receive more precocious instruction than those who are brought up in retirement.  So this solitary education would be preferable, even if it did nothing more than leave childhood time to ripen.

There is quite another class of exceptions:  those so gifted by nature that they rise above the level of their age.  As there are men who never get beyond infancy, so there are others who are never, so to speak, children, they are men almost from birth.  The difficulty is that these cases are very rare, very difficult to distinguish; while every mother, who knows that a child may be a prodigy, is convinced that her child is that one.  They go further; they mistake the common signs of growth for marks of exceptional talent.  Liveliness, sharp sayings, romping, amusing simplicity, these are the characteristic marks of this age, and show that the child is a child indeed.  Is it strange that a child who is encouraged to chatter and allowed to say anything, who is restrained neither by consideration nor convention, should chance to say something clever?  Were he never to hit the mark, his case would be stranger than that of the astrologer who, among a thousand errors, occasionally predicts the truth.  “They lie so often,” said Henry iv., “that at last they say what is true.”  If you want to say something clever, you have only to talk long enough.  May Providence watch over those fine folk who have no other claim to social distinction.

The finest thoughts may spring from a child’s brain, or rather the best words may drop from his lips, just as diamonds of great worth may fall into his hands, while neither the thoughts nor the diamonds are his own; at that age neither can be really his.  The child’s sayings do not mean to him what they mean to us, the ideas he attaches to them are different.  His ideas, if indeed he has any ideas at all, have neither order nor connection; there is nothing sure, nothing certain, in his thoughts.  Examine your so-called prodigy.  Now and again you will discover in him extreme activity of mind and extraordinary clearness of thought.  More often this same mind will seem slack and spiritless, as if wrapped in mist.  Sometimes he goes before you, sometimes he will not stir.  One moment you would call him a genius, another a fool.  You would be mistaken in both; he is a child, an eaglet who soars aloft for a moment, only to drop back into the nest.

Treat him, therefore, according to his age, in spite of appearances, and beware of exhausting his strength by over-much exercise.  If the young brain grows warm and begins to bubble, let it work freely, but do not heat it any further, lest it lose its goodness, and when the first gases have been given off, collect and compress the rest so that in after years they may turn to life-giving heat and real energy.  If not, your time and your pains will be wasted, you will destroy your own work, and after foolishly intoxicating yourself with these heady fumes, you will have nothing left but an insipid and worthless wine.